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During Monday’s edition of “The Cycle” on MSNBC, TheBlaze’s S.E. Cupp blasted NBC Sports’ Bob Costas for lecturing his audience about gun control during Sunday Night Football, calling it a “shameful” and “irresponsible” act. Costas was responding to Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher’s recent murder-suicide.

Cupp sparred with fellow co-host Steve Kornacki over whether guns or individuals are to blame for such tragedies, particularly involving domestic disputes.

“When we’re talking about the weapons, we’re not talking about domestic violence,” Cupp said. “And that does a huge disservice to a woman who is in that situation.”

Cupp said it was irresponsible for Costas to tell “millions of NFL viewers that they have permission to blame guns instead of the person who pulled the trigger.” She went on to say that giving an “inanimate object” human capabilities is “absolutely absurd.”

Costas, reading from sports columnist Jason Whitlock’s column, said:

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.”

“Bob Costas has, I think, done something shameful and irresponsible and is going to have some blood on his hands if we continue to talk about the wrong problem, what is not the problem: handguns,” Cupp said.

Kornacki jumped in and immediately attempted to discredit Cupp’s argument.

“I wish you’d grapple with some of the statistics that are out there, S.E., before you say something like that,” Kornacki replied.

“I’ve written about this a lot, Steve, and very few domestic violence cases are committed with handguns. That’s a fact,” Cupp shot back.

Kornacki said that a domestic dispute is 12 times more likely to end in homicide when there is a firearm in the house. The source of the information is “John Hopkins University Center for Gun Control.” He also argued that the risk of homicide increases by 5 times for women when there is a gun in the house (Source: American Journal of Public Health). Finally, Kornacki said two out of three women killed by guns are involved in domestic disputes (Source: U.S. Department of Justice).

“There is a link here,” said Kornacki. “It takes a horrible situation where a woman gets beat up, but at least has a chance to get out with her life and get away from that situation, it takes that and it makes her dead.”

Cupp countered by saying most women in domestic disputes are in danger because of “fists and hands,” adding that “anything can be a weapon.”

“I think Bob Costas could have had a really great moment if he realized that he had a captive audience, mostly of men, to talk about the horrors of domestic violence,” Cupp added.

“And ignore the element that takes domestic violence and makes it 12 times more likely to lead to somebody dying? Let’s just ignore that,” Kornacki replied.